May I ask, when did every season of the year become busy? Growing up it seemed that there were only two busy times – back-to-school and Christmas. The rest of the year was ordinary and slow.
It’s only February, nothing important has happened for two months, and yet I feel like I am gasping for rest. Even when I have restful times, I’m not truly resting. My mind is jumping to the next chore, project, or event.
Can I just tell you that Lent completely snuck up on me this year. I mean, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but as I scrolled through my Facebook feed yesterday I saw a post about Ash Wednesday and had to remember what day it was and if THIS Wednesday was the Wednesday they were talking about. It was.
Can I also admit I immediately felt burdened by it? Easter is my favorite holiday, truthfully, not in a “I just want to be different” sort-of way, so I love that in less than 40 days it will be here. But, right now I’m exhausted. I’m bogged down with so much life stuff that I feel like I can’t give Lent one ounce of me.
This is partly because I am in Bible Study Fellowship which is great, and I’ve recommended it so many times, but it is intensive weekly Bible study. There’s no extra time in this toddler mom’s days for a Lent study, too.
So what do I do? I start a Lent study anyway, of course – She Reads Truth to be exact. I don’t know why I do this to myself. Sometimes I wonder if it’s to subconsciously set myself up for failure.
The weeks long campaign that I’ve been a part of speaking truth into Fifty Shades of Grey and promoting Pulling Back the Shades is coming to an end today as the movie is released. I know most people, maybe even you, are tired of the bombardment. I even saw this post today on Facebook:
I could say a lot about this post and the comments people made comparing the Fifty Shades of Grey posts to the yoga-pants ban post (Did you catch that one?) and the infinite number of anti-immunization posts. But at this point there’s no point.
We all have to stand for something.
My something may not be your something, and praise God for that, because if my something and your something and everyone else something’s were identical there would be a lot of unmet needs in this world.
Personally, this is my litmus test for what to stand for or stand up for or speak out about:
Is this an eternal issue?
If you follow me on Facebook, especially, you know that I have been blowing up your feed with posts about the book Pulling Back the Shades by Dannah Gresh and Dr. Juli Slattery. This is in response to the movie, based on the book Fifty Shades of Grey, that is scheduled to come out in about a week.
Friends, the reason I am so passionate about combatting Fifty Shades of Grey with Pulling Back the Shades is because every woman I know deals with the effects of sexual sin – either her own sexual sin or the sin of people in her life. Many women across this world are real-life sex slaves. Yet we fictionalize sexual sin and pretend it’s not real. Stories of erotica, pornography, sexual bondage, and just plain, old-fashioned sex-out-of-wedlock, like Fifty Shades of Grey, are not make-believe. It’s time the Church talks about that fact.
Overall I consider myself a nice person. I say “please” and “thank you” and most of the time even “yes ma’am” and “no sir.” I am from the south after all.
I always use my blinker, even when turning into my driveway. If you try to do something to help me I make sure you really want to by asking, “Are you sure?” a hundred times. I smile at everyone I see.
But put me in a public place, such as a grocery store, and all of a sudden my eyes go red and my fangs come out. It’s as if walking through the automatic doors transforms my body into the Wicked Witch of the West. With everything in me I have to hold back screaming, “Get out of my way!”
In public my flesh is real.
Recently I’ve been beating myself up over a question that parades through my mind regularly.
“How did you let that happen?”
I think back on my life past, and I ask myself this question about many situations. I go down the mental path of different scenarios of what I could have done – but I didn’t.
Sometimes my regret gets out of control. I just dwell on the past so much that it becomes an obsession.
